GERM agenda sucks money out of public education – NZEI Press Release

Figures in yesterday’s Budget show that millions of dollars are being skimmed out of public schools to pay for the government’s ideological experiments with the Global Education Reform Movement.

More than $12m over two years is being transferred to five charter schools (which currently teach a total of just 367 children) and $1.145m into Public-Private Partnerships.

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Judith Nowotarski said the incredibly high per-head cost of running charter schools was being paid at the expense of public school students and teachers.

“It seems parents of special needs children can beg for more funding until they’re blue in the face, but when it comes to the government’s ideological projects, money is no problem – just take it out of the public system,” she said.

“Treasury officials warned that any Public Private Partnerships for building schools would result in minimal savings – after all, tax payers have to pay the construction company’s profit margins. But on top of that, the government has pulled more than $1m from public school budgets for the PPP projects in Hobsonville.”

Charter schools
Charter schools received an extra $7.978m from the Secondary education budget line through appropriations (p 211 Vote Education Supplementary estimates of appropriations document) and an additional $1.252m from Primary Education (p 210 of the Supplementary Estimates) for the first tranche of schools in 2013/4 and they will get an additional $3.384m in 2014/15. (page 2 of Vote Education Initiatives paper).

Public Private Partnerships
$1.145 has been transferred from the School Property Portfolio Management to Hobsonville Point PPPs.